Be cautious of the thorns of life. The Scripture says the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things enter into the heart and choke the Word until the Word cannot produce (Mark 4:18-19).
People who give their thoughts and energy to gratifying the flesh will not walk in the power of God.
I am not talking about sin. Obviously, we will not walk habitually in the power of God with sin in our lives. But I am talking about the attention and affection of our hearts being given to this natural, physical world instead of to God. We are either walking after the natural world or after the spiritual world.
Many have tried to have the best of both worlds. You may have a little success that way, but you will not experience the blessings and the power of God to the degree that He desires for you. God requires more of us because we have revelation knowledge of His Word. "For unto whosoever much is given, of him shall be much required" (Luke 12:48).
We are a generation to whom much has been given. God has not trained us in His Word so that we can consume it on our own lusts. He has revealed His Word to us so that we can walk in the spirit while we live in a natural, physical world. We have a job to do. He has taught us to use our faith for the harvest of souls.
We have to learn to walk in the spirit to fulfill God's plan for this hour.
Kenneth Hagin has prophesied:
But as you walk with the Lord, as you prepare your heart, as you feed upon His Word, as you listen to what the Spirit of God says, your heart shall be prepared and your mind will be changed until you will flow in the supernatural as naturally as a bird will fly in the air. And you'll flow in the supernatural as naturally as a fish will swim in the water. And you'll flow in the supernatural as naturally as you will breath the very air.We will not even be conscious of using our faith because it will be so very natural and normal to walk in the spirit! But to do this we must let go of our allegiance to this natural world. It holds no security anyway.
Jesus said, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's the same shall save it" (Mark 8:35). If we try to hold onto the natural things of this world instead of serving God with our whole hearts, we will miss out on the glorious things of the Spirit.
When Kenneth and I first heard about living by faith, we were in desperate circumstances. We did not know any better than to be sick and in debt.
It was easy to dedicate ourselves to the Word because we had no other answer. We couldn't do anything else. We were broke! But then as we honored God's Word, God honored His Word and prospered us. We can to a place where we were no longer desperate. We could do whatever we wanted to do.
It takes a lot more faithfulness to be totally dedicated to God now when we are prosperous than it did when we were broke. Today we serve Him because we love Him and are devoted to Him and not out of desperation.
Just think about it. God has people in the earth who know how to use their faith. We know how to put the Word to work and we are going to serve Him, not out of desperation but because we love Him! Now God has something to work with—faithfulness!
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka: Kenneth Copeland Ministries